Blind Leading The blind
by Dust2Dust17
Summary: Coco has a little laser eye surgery done and tries to adapt to her temporary loss of sight. Part of my one-shot challenge: 99-Embarrassment.


"So how did it go, Doc?" Fox asked, sitting up from his slouched position in the clinic chair.

"We'll you'll be happy to know the procedure was a success. Our treatment went by with no errors and should have restored full vision if everything works out." the doctor said with a smile.

"That's great!" Fox exclaimed. "So when do the bandages come off?"

"Oh, they're only on until the eyes can adjust to their new capabilities. " the doctor answered. "They should be able to come off by the time you go to bed."

"Great. Now can the two of you stop pretending like I'm not here?" a voice asked, sounding somewhat annoyed. Both men turned to Coco, sitting on an examination table, arms crossed and bandages wrapped over her eyes.

"Of course. Sorry, Miss Adel." the doctor quickly apologized. "You're all settled to check out whenever you're ready."

With a nod, Coco hopped off the table and onto her feet, somewhat wobbling as she tried using her instincts to find the exit.

"Uh, here. Let me-" Fox started as he went to help his team leader, only for his hand to be pushed away.

"Fox, I appreciate the gesture, but I can take care of this myself." Coco ordered as she brushed past him and up to the wall, not saying a thing as she found a doorknob. Opening it, both the doctor and her blind teammate waited as she realized her mistake.

"This is the bathroom isn't it?"

* * *

The walk back to the cafe they were to meet Velvet and Yatsuhashi at after the procedure was indeed a sight to behold, pun intended. The fashionista remained adamant that she did not require help from Fox, despite nearly walking into flowing traffic three times and constantly bumping into mailboxes, trash cans, and any passerby she found herself unlucky enough to avoid.

"Geez, how much further?" Coco asked, now dragging her feet, as they had been walking for quite a while.

"On our left in a couple seconds. Just watch out for the-"

He was cut off as Coco tumbled head over heels over a low brick wall that served as a divider to the sidewalk from the outdoor seating area of the cafe.

"...the dividing wall." Fox said with a sigh.

"Coco? Fox?" Velvet called over, looking up from her and Yatsuhashi's table a yard or so away.

"Velvet? Is that you?" Coco asked, getting up, and feeling her way towards their table.

"No, it's another rabbit Faunus with a cockney accent." Velvet chuckled, unable to hold a sarcastic tone as she watched Coco try to feel around for their table the same way a blindfolded child would when looking where to pin the tail on the donkey.

"Oh, haha." the fashionista muttered as she sat down after finally finding a seat. She couldn't seem to get comfortable though. The patio chair was lumpy and stiff and made out of something that didn't feel like iron or wood. "What's with this chair?" she complained, readjusting her sitting position to try and make it better, but to no avail.

"Um, Coco? You're sitting on my lap." Her giant teammate spoke.

Blushing from embarrassment, she felt up the back of the chair, recognizing Yatsuhashi's pauldron and the sling of his giant sword across his chest like a sash. "Oh. Whoops." she mumbled as she got up and to a seat to his left that was unoccupied.

"So how'd the laser eye surgery go?" Velvet asked as Fox sat down across from the team leader.

"Good, I guess. The docs were able to fix my astigmatism, so I won't be needing these anymore." Coco said, pulling a contact lens case out of her pocket and placing it on the table.

"That's great!" Velvet smiled. "Good to hear that you'll be able to see again-" She cut herself off as her eyes trailed from her temporarily blind leader to her permanently blind teammate. "Oh, sorry, Fox. This must..."

"It's fine, Velvet." he interrupted. "I'm okay being like this. Besides, if I ever got the ability to see, it would be a huge hassle for me to relearn a lot of things."

"Ah, yes." Yatsuhashi nodded. "Like transitioning from reading and writing in Braille to english."

"Exactly." Fox nodded. "By the way, do they have menus in Braille here?"

"We do!" A cheerful voice answered as their waitress walked up to the table. She had red hair, a bright smile on her face, and a voice that almost sounded like a less-squeaky version of that first year student with a scythe as a weapon. "My name is Lindsey, and I'll be your server today." she greeted as she handed everyone their menus, giving Fox one meant for people with sight disabilities, and paused as she noticed Coco. "Oh, should I have gotten a second one?"

"No, it's fine. I'll use his when he's done." Coco answered.

"You read Braille too, Coco?" Velvet asked.

"Well I had to learn somehow when I became Fox's tutor this year." she answered as the other three gave Lindsey their orders, then Fox passing Coco his menu. She skimmed her fingers over the bumps that made the language of the blind, pausing as she found a curious item on the entrees section. "Hey, what the hell is an 'Oily Bicycle Melt?"

While everyone around the table gave weird looks at the annunciation of the menu item, Fox took the menu back and read down what Coco was looking at. "Coco, this says 'Spicy Tuna Roll'."

"But that's not enough letters!"

"You were reading into the price as well."

Coco deadpanned as she blushed in embarrassment again. "I'll just have that.." she answered.

"Anything to drink?"

Not wanting to make a fool out of herself by mistranslating the menu again, she asked Lindsey, "Do you have People Like Grapes?"

"Yep! I'll be back with your drinks in a moment." she nodded as she took the menus and walked off.

"You okay, Coco?" Velvet asked.

"That was just...really embarrassing." she said, rubbing her temples.

"Just go splash some cold water on your face, get your head back in the game." Fox suggested.

"Good idea!" Velvet nodded. "Here, let me bring you over to the bathroom." she said, getting up to escort her teammate to the restroom.

"I can walk there by myself, Velvs. It'll be fine." Coco answered, getting up from her seat and walking towards the outdoor entrance to the bathroom, then opening a door and walking inside. Once it closed, a passing, brown-skinned busboy with a rose tucked in his lapel.

"Does she realize she just walked into the janitor's closet?" he asked.

"Wait for it..." Fox said, waiting for a question to come from the closet.

"...This is a mop bucket and not a toilet, isn't it?"

* * *

Coco had been facedown on the table in the study section of the school's library. It had been a few hours since her episode of embarrassment at the restaurant, and somehow, she felt like everyone she'd ever known had seen.

"It wasn't that bad, Coco." Velvet reassured her.

"I was using a closet as a bathroom with everyone in a cafe knowing about it." she murmured from her position on the table. "It was the worst possible thing that could happen to me."

"You said the same thing when you got your vest stained with Grimm blood back in freshman year." Yatsuhashi commented.

"And the time they ran out of your favorite shampoo at the department store downtown." Velvet added.

"That was different! This was..." Coco continued to complain before she could hear snickering from behind them, as could her team. At a nearby computer desk sat three members of one of the younger teams, CRDL is they weren't mistaken. Dove sat in between Sky and Russel as they seemed to be watching quite the hilarious video on DustTube.

"Haha! Play it again, Dove!" Russel asked, wiping a tear from his eye.

"What a klutz!" Sky commented as the swordsman hit the replay button.

Standing up and marching over to them, Coco leaned over the two shorter members of the all-male first year team. "What seems to be so funny, boys?" she asked.

"Oh, uh...n-nothing?" Sky said, darting his eyes left and right to show off how bad of a liar he was.

"J-just some viral video is all..." Dove added.

"Of what." Coco said, her tone getting serious. "Velvs, come over here and tell me what's happening on the video."

The rabbit Faunus nodded, ignoring the fact she was marching up to three members of a group that bullied her constantly. Having no choice, Russel sighed as he motioned for Dove to replay the video. Velvet's eyes narrowed as she read the title "Klutzy Blind Girl at Le Geoff's", and it was timestamped as uploaded at least an hour ago and already scratching ten thousand views. In simplicity, it was someone who used a phone camera to record the details of Coco bumping into just about every table and person she could as she tried to feel her way to a bathroom door. Velvet didn't need to even try and act as Coco's visual aid; the team leader could hear all of it. Apparently the new iSchnee Phones had great sound quality on their cameras, comments of the camera man and other cafe patrons being heard as if they were right in front of them in person. As the video ended, all eyes turned to Coco. They expected her to readily rip their manhoods off and feed them to an Ursa while making them watch. Instead, they found her flushed red, and what they could assume was tears trying to stream down her face, as a wet spot started appearing through the bandages over where her eyes were. Wordlessly, she turned and made a b-line for the nearest door.

"Coco, wait!" Velvet called out, being unacknowledged as the fashionista ignored her and left the library. She was ready to go after her before a hand on her shoulder stopped her.

"Let me take care of it." Fox requested as he went after her, leaving Velvet, Yatsuhashi, and most of Team CRDL just standing around awkwardly.

"I...I din't expect that reaction." Russel commented.

"Does that mean she's not going to beat us up? I mean, we didn't make the video, only watched it..." Dove assumed.

"Oh, don't worry. In that case, she won't." Velvet smiled, getting sighs of relief from the three boys.

"But for laughing at her, I will." Yatushashi said in a low tone, cracking his knuckles.

"Oh. Crap." Sky gulped.

* * *

Back at their dorm, Fox stood outside the closed door of the room, where a crudely written sign he assumed was trying to spell "Keep Out" in braille hung. Ignoring it, he fished out a key to the dorm and unlocked the door, getting inside to find his leader sitting on her bed, facing away from the doorway.

"Coco?" he asked.

"Go away, Fox." she ordered, her voice cracking.

"Not until you tell me what's wrong." he said, walking over and sitting down next to her, turning her head towards him with his head. He noticed he couldn't feel the bandages wrapping around her head anymore. "The bandages were ready to come off?"

"My vision's a bit blurry still, but it's just about time that I can take them off." Coco replied, looking at the torn scraps of fabric on the nightstand next to them. "I can't believe that happened." she moped.

"What are you talking about?" he asked.

"The video, you knucklehead!" she snapped. "I just wanted to show you that I could be independent like you, even without my sight, and I ended up looking like the biggest idiot ever. Now, all of Remnant knows about it!"

"Is that what's been causing you to act on your own since we got out of the eye doctor's office?" Fox asked, getting a nod in response. "Look, Coco, I wouldn't know what it's like adapting to losing your sight temporarily. I was born like this, so I've had all my life to deal with it. You losing it for not even a day isn't something you're going to pick up just like that."

" I noticed." she deadpanned in response.

"Still, I'm flattered you wanted to know what it was like not having vision." he commented to her surprise. "Just, if there's ever a next time, brush up on your braille."

She was silent for a moment before letting out a small, uncharacteristic giggle. "And maybe invest in a walking cane." she added.

"See? Now you're laughing it off." Fox said. "And don't worry about the video. We can request to have it taken down from the internet. Besides, there's got to be something more embarrassing than that out there somewhere."

"True..." she nodded. "Hey, don't you still have your old walking stick?"

"Actually, yeah. Lemme check the closet." he thought for a moment before walking over to one of the doors on the other end of the room from Coco's bed and walking inside. "Coco?"

"Yes, Fox. You're in the bathroom instead of the closet."

* * *

**Finally got another one of these done! I've been falling behind on one-shot production recently from schoolwork and work on my main fic, RWBY: Stolen Innocence. This one was sort of inspired from an old Drake and Josh episode where the guys had to take care of Josh's boss after her laser eye surgery. My friend, who knows about the stuff I write about on here and is a big RWBY fan like me, said, "I could imagine this happening to someone in team CFVY, what about you?"**

**And that's where this idea came into play. Hope you guys liked it. See you next time!**


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